


clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right

by MyMisguidedFairytale



Series: DESIDERATUM [5]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Canon Compliant, Coda, Drama & Romance, F/M, Heaven's Arena, Internal Conflict, Multi, One Shot, will they won't they
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 02:29:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16777855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyMisguidedFairytale/pseuds/MyMisguidedFairytale
Summary: “You should stay,” he says. “Unless you have somewhere to go.”They’d barely spoken on Greed Island; they certainly hadn’t been alone in each other’s company since long before then. And even now, it’s harder than she’d thought it would be to drop back into the rhythm like nothing had happened, even though the others seem so good at it—like the events at Yorkshin, and their consequences, hadn’t happened. But Hisoka handles it so easily, now that all his goals and desires are falling into place with a nearly staged perfection. Had he doubted, even for a moment, his own success?





	clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right

**Author's Note:**

> _clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right_ was originally written and published on June 24, 2016 on [tumblr](http://mymisguidedfairytale.tumblr.com/post/146428669030/fanfiction-hunter-x-hunter-clowns-to-the-left).
> 
> Takes place the night before Ch 351. Technically part of the same universe as my other Hisomachi fics, but deviates slightly in that with the newer chapters the Hisoka vs Kuroro fight made [_Desideratum_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14042280) out of date and I wanted to write a canon-compliant addition to my network of stories. I hope you enjoy!

**__**

**  
_clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right_ **

****  


Kuroro’s room at Heaven’s Arena is on a higher floor than Machi expects, tucked into one corner of the twisting spinnaret that makes up the tower’s highest levels. She doesn’t see much of it—he offers no tour, or much of a greeting at all. It had only been a few weeks since she’d last seen him, and even though they, and most of the Ryodan, have spent far longer apart in the past between missions, and she has been alternating between working with Danchou in the aftermath of the _Nen_ exorcism and keeping tabs on Hisoka, it’s like they’ve fallen as a group back into the same rapport they had before the disastrous events at Yorkshin were ever put into motion. She expects things to be different between them, somehow, and it unsettles her that they are not, although she says nothing.

“You should consider joining the matches here, sometime,” Kuroro says to her, absently. “You can get a permanent place to stay in the city.”

Machi shrugs. “I don’t like an audience.” And even on this floor, tucked away as they are, her skin crawls with the sensation of being surrounded by so much powerful _Nen_. Her _En_ is not nearly as strong as she’d like, but even she can feel the others on their floor, milling about. It’s clear the match the following day will have a great many spectators.

“Thank you for seeing me here.” He’s turned to unpacking, now, throwing a few belongings from a black bucket bag into various drawers and picking up a few of the odds and ends scattered around the living space. It’s cute, watching him clean up. He scrunches up his face, observing the stacks of books and blankets piled on an easy chair, before picking each up one or two at a time and relocating them to an empty shelf or drawer. She wonders if he’s doing it on her account, or if its his standard routine when he returns here after so long away.

“I admit, I was surprised to hear you’d chosen this place for your fight,” Machi says. “It didn’t seem like you.”

His only response to that is a hum as he picks up two more books from the stack and glances between them. “Everything is exactly as I’d left it.”

The titles are faded and obscure, but Machi can still make out the gilded gold of the lettering and the creases in the pages. Well-worn. He handles them like they mean something to him, but at the same time, he’d left them there, hadn’t he? Or perhaps he was planning to sell them all along, and had only gotten interrupted.

“You look lost in thought.” And finally, Kuroro comes to sit beside her, on the fashionable, low leather couch that’s shoved against the side wall. It’s got a slight curve to it, and that forces Kuroro’s knees to bump against hers as he makes himself comfortable. “Are you worried?”

“I’m putting too much thought into things.” She shrugs again, and when he inclines his head she realizes he’s waiting for an actual answer to his question. “Yes. Of course I’m worried.”

“For me?”

“Of _course_.” It rankles her, that it even has to be said. That it’s not implicit, after everything she’s done.

“Have you heard from Hisoka yet?”

And the mention of that name does nothing to ease her irritation. “Not yet. I think he’d be here by now. He asked to see me, later.”

“You should go. I’d like to confirm that he’s actually here. And that he won’t get into any trouble before the fight.”

The seeming levity of the delivery of his request means it doesn’t register with her for a moment. Then, she’s a little speechless that on the night before his biggest battle yet he wouldn’t want her at his side to assist in his preparations.

She refuses as gently as she can. “You need someone here to protect you.” Even in the short trip from the airfield to Heaven’s Arena, it had felt strange being the only one to receive him. There is not Nobunaga’s gratitude or Feitan’s discourtesy or Phinx’s bluster.

“Shalnark and Koltopi are on their way,” Danchou says. “They won’t be long.”

She doesn’t know how else to refuse, and when Danchou turns further towards her his knees knock against hers again. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Everything will be fine,” he reassures her. “I have the utmost confidence in my abilties. And in the Spider,” he adds, after a pause.

Then, her phone buzzes from across the room, where she left it propped on top of her bag. She ignores it until it buzzes a second time, then stands and makes her way over to the bag and snatches up the phone.

“It’s Shalnark,” she says, scrolling up. “They’re here.”

There’s another message too she hasn’t yet read. Another one from Hisoka, inviting her to his room and reminding her of the job he’d offered her.

“You should go,” Danchou says. “I’ll need to speak to them alone.”

She lingers in the threshold and closes her hand around the phone. “If you’re sure.”

“I am. Always.” Danchou waves a hand towards her as he changes his posture on the sofa, drawing a leg up and opening one of his books. “If I need anything, I will call.”

She knows he would, just as she knows she would answer, regardless of the request or how it was made. As she has no desire to meet Shalnark or Koltopi on the way up, she leaves in a hurry, rocking her feet in an empty elevator, glad she has no one to share it with. She does not trust herself in her current state not to take out her aggressions on some unsuspecting passersby. In a way, it is the perfect mood to go meet Hisoka.

Still, she hesitates outside his door, before quickly knocking twice and dropping her arms to her sides. When Hisoka opens the door, the smile on his face is as blinding as it is smug. He holds open the door to let her inside, and she ducks beneath his arm and storms inside, tossing her bag into a corner.

Hisoka’s apartment, in contrast with Danchou’s, is a study in minimalism. There’s only a single couch and low table with a half-built card tower, and she can see a dining set around the corner near the spotlessly white kitchen. No rugs, no curtains, and only a single piece of art hangs opposite the entry, something generic like the type of prints found in an upscale hotel room.

“Would you like a tour?” Hisoka closes the door behind her and she can hear the unmistakable turn of the lock before he joins her in the middle of the room, producing a pack of cards seemingly from nowhere and beginning to shuffle them. “When I became a Floor Master, they moved me here. The view really is quite spectacular, don’t you think?”

They’re so high up its almost dizzying, and all along the horizon Machi can see only the red of the slowly setting sun.

“I’m not here for the view,” she says, turning away from the window towards Hisoka. He raises one immaculately arched eyebrow. “Or the tour.”

“Then what, Machi?”

“Danchou wanted to be sure you’d show.”

“He could have come himself.” He almost sounds disappointed, which irritates her, and he flicks a handful of cards over to reveal a flush, all clubs.

“And risk you jumping him in the hallway?” She instantly regrets her choice of words and bites the inside of her cheek when he chuckles. Instead, she drops into the middle of his sofa and studies the card tower he’d built on the coffee table before her.

She reaches out, considering tipping it over before withdrawing. “I’ve always wondered…do you use _Nen_ to create these or is it just the ingenuity of repetition?”

He shrugs his shoulders, and her eyes flick to his muscles. “See for yourself.”

So she does, engaging her eyes with _Gyo_ and spotting thin drops of his sticky _Nen_ applied along the edges and tops of the visible cards where they connect together. It’s tough work, she knows, to separate one’s aura from one’s body, and to manipulate and contain it so deftly, and for so long. He does not join her or say anything else, merely watches her as the realization dawns in her shining eyes.

“It’s practice.” She almost cannot believe it, how such an act had slipped beneath her recognition for so long when all it would have taken to discover it was one simple act. “Your technique. All this time, we thought you were just messing around. But it actually has a purpose. A training exercise.”

Her use of ‘we’ does not escape his notice, or hers, and she regrets that too. She has exercises of her own, repetition to allow her to draw _Nen_ strings faster and stitch with even greater accuracy. She supposes, every time they’d been together as a group and he’d been off building his castles and laughing to himself, he was really laughing at them.

“You’re so angry,” he says, and for how light his voice sounds she knows just how murky his intentions are. “I can help you with that.”

“You can tell me,” she says, trying to regain some of the power she feels like she’s lost in their brief conversation, “about that job you mentioned.”

“Ah! Yes.” There are hearts in his smile, and he takes a step closer and props one hand on his hips. The cards are gone from his grasp, and Machi regrets once again that she cannot remember when he’d lost them or where they’d gone. “I was thinking. Not about the battle, but after.”

“After?” Machi echoes.

“There’s a very real possibility I’ll be critically injured. I’d like to retain your services, to heal me if required. You can name your price.”

Even considering it feels more than a little uncomfortable, but then she looks up at him again, studying Hisoka from head to toe. He’s the picture of perfect health. There’s not even a hair out of place or a wrinkle in his shirt.

“Twenty-five million jenni.” The words are out of her mouth before she can retract them, and he beams in response.

“I’ll go wire the money now. The same account?”

She nods, and after he turns to leave she flexes her fingers by her side. He leaves the door to his bedroom open, and she can hear the faint beeping of his phone whenever he presses a button.

It’s not a betrayal. He’s a loyal customer, and one of her only legal sources of income. Really, she should have asked for more. She knows he can afford it.

A moment later he returns. “Done. You can check your account, if you like.”

She will, later. “It’s fine.”

He crosses the room and sits beside her, stretching out an arm over the top of the sofa and taking up as much space as his long limbs allow.

“I wonder,” he says, after a pause. “Has Kuroro made such a request of you?”

She would say that Danchou doesn’t have to ask her, but her silence is answer enough. He sounds shocked, but she knows it’s all pretense. “He _hasn’t_? Now why would that be?”

“You’re not getting any information out of me. If all you’d like to talk about is Danchou, I can leave.”

“Oh? So if we talk about anything else, you’ll stay?” He sounds pleased, and leans closer, to pluck a spare card from the tabletop and place it on top of an open spot above the first level of propped cards.

“We could talk about when we last saw one another, on Greed Island. Or you could always try to persuade _me_ for information, if you wanted.”

“Alright.” She turns towards him, pointedly ignoring the way he shifts his arm against the back of the sofa to better frame her shoulders. “Tell me. Why Heaven’s Arena?”

“It wasn’t my idea.” Hisoka pouts, just enough that Machi believes it. “The venue, the date, none of it. All I want is a fight. It doesn’t really matter how that happens. Kuroro can handle all the details as he likes, he was so insistent. I’m surprised you didn’t know that, either.”

“You fight here often,” she concedes. “I thought you’d like a crowd for this.”

He shrugs, and she can feel his aura pulse at the mention of the upcoming match. “Quality over quantity. Will you be there, Machi?”

“I’ll watch from the television.”

“Do you need tickets? They gave me extras, but I didn’t have anyone to give them to.”

“No.” She doesn’t like the way he stares at her, expectantly, so she stands and moves back to the window. Rays of dying sunlight strike the side of the walls in angled stripes, and she purposefully stands in one so her vision blurs and etoliates until every color and sight looks the same and she can no longer see any hint of Hisoka’s bright blue uniform in the reflection from the window.

Then, she blinks, and she can see him clearly, standing behind her. She doesn’t turn, but shifts her posture, her eyes following his reflection as he props one hand on his hip.

“You should stay,” he says. “Unless you have somewhere to go. Will you go back to him?”

The unspoken _does he want you to?_ hangs in the air like smoke. “I have made arrangements.”

“But you’ll be alone. And across town, most likely. Can you see it from here?” A laugh escapes him, and Machi spins, settling her back against the cool glass. Hisoka tilts his head, and for all the expanse of the view and the sunset behind her he never takes his eyes from her face.

She doesn’t speak, preferring the indecision of the silence even as he takes one step towards her, then another. Soon he is standing beside her, close enough to touch, but only the edge of his sleeve brushes against hers. And only then does he finally turn away, to watch the sun fade.

They’d barely spoken on Greed Island; they certainly hadn’t been alone in each other’s company since long before then. And even now, it’s harder than she’d thought it would be to drop back into the rhythm like nothing had happened, even though the others seem so good at it—like the events at Yorkshin, and their consequences, hadn’t happened. But Hisoka handles it so easily, now that all his goals and desires are falling into place with a nearly staged perfection. Had he doubted, even for a moment, his own success?

She thinks, with some kind of inane jealousy, that he is ignoring her, and reaches up to tug on the edge of one ballooned sleeve. “I wonder,” she says, her voice almost a whisper, “how we let this happen.”

“Will you fight it?”

She huffs out a breath, leaning further back against the glass, and when his eyes seek out the exposed skin of her neck she finds the attention is not as unwelcome as she wants it to be. “How?”

“You could choose.”

She exhales again. “Choose what?”

“Choose to stay.”

He is still for once, and Machi takes another moment to draw in a breath. The sunlight against the far wall is gone, and they haven’t turned on any lights. “And you’re offering?”

“I am,” he says, and spreads his free hand wide. “You can sleep wherever you wish. Weave one of those hammocks out of your _Nen_ threads, like you used to do on our missions together.”

Her tone turns light, the closest thing to a tacit acceptance lying sweet on her tongue. “You just want to see my ability again.”

“From this high up,” he continues, “the stars really are incredible. The first few nights, after I became a Floor Master, I slept out here so I could see them better. The bedroom window’s about the size of a shoebox.”

“The stars, huh?”

“Maybe I’d like to see them again.”

“Not tonight you won’t.”

The sunset had been at its peak when she entered his apartment, but now it’s as if the sky has tipped itself over into a deep blue bowl. It’s striking, maybe moreso than the sunset had been, and maybe she even prefers it.

“You can watch the match from here, tomorrow,” he offers. “If you don’t want to see it in-person.”

“No. I’ll be gone before you wake up.”

He inclines his head towards her, then disappears into the open bedroom behind him. He leaves the door open in yet another invitation, but Machi merely drops to the floor and folds her legs underneath her body, facing the expanse of city lights and cradling her head with one arm.

She wonders how any of them are going to sleep tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Title and lots of inspiration from the song _Stuck in the Middle with You_ by Stealers Wheel. 
> 
> 2) Thank you to everyone who read and supported this series from FF.net to here! This is the end...for now. But hopefully at some point in the future we'll get more HxH chapters with more Hisoka and Machi interactions and I'll have more fuel to write about. :3 But until then, this is it! Thank you for reading! I would appreciate and value your comments.


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